Reflection for the 8th week.

Main Course
Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. New York: Doubleday. Introduction
Wallace, P. (1999). Your online persona, the psychology of impression formation. The psychology of the Internet (pp. 14-37). London: Cambridge University Press. [Read this eBook - MSU authorized users]
Suler, J. (2000). Identity management in cyberspace. Available online at http://www.rider.edu/users/suler/psycyber/identitymanage.html

Other Readings
Suler, J. (2000). The Integration Principle. Available online at http://www.rider.edu/~suler/psycyber/integrate.html
Suler, J. (2000). Personality Types in Cyberspace. Available online at http://www.rider.edu/~suler/psycyber/persontypes.html

Summaries
Goffman, E. (1959). Goffman introduced his book with constructive reflection and discussion on communication among people, such as reasons of why people acquire information of other s and ways of how people express themselves. Expression making and impression receiving are two-way interaction between individuals who give or give off and individuals who interpret them. When communication happens with the presence of face-to-face interaction, the situation is influenced or even defined by the parties' activity. One important point Goffman made is that individuals express themselves not only via verbal assertions (more controllable information), but also through non-verbal actions, such as gestures, eye-contact, tones, facial expression, and other body language (less controllable information), where individuals are able to manipulate the former, but not so to the latter. On the other hand, as witness, people who receive the information will be "likely to check up on the more controllable aspects of the behavior by means of the less controllable" (pp.7). Then Goffman further his discussion to small group settings. He explained that in order to reach a consensus, a "working consensus", that everyone at least agrees on temporarily, each participant is "expected to suppress his immediate heartful feelings" (pp.9). In addition to the assumption that all participants take part in different conversations have their own projected definition of the situation, or schema?, there are chances that various disruptive events happen during communication. People usually apply precautions to prevent the occurrence of the disruption. Also people may apply practical jokes and social games to balance the embarrassment of social life. While reading this article, I get many information supporting that communication is an active cognitive process.

Indentity is the object on the focal point in discussion of "I" or "we" in cyberspace. What we have read in Goffman's article is not all applicable to the present context. As mentioned by Turkkle in his book, Life on the Screen, this new space is "changing the way we think, the nature of our sexuality, the form of our communities, our very identity". What the less controllable behaviors mentioned by Goffman are fading or disappeared in cyberspace. Even though we call it the virtual world, we have no means to present ourselves in front of others physically in cyberspace. Thus all the physical facial expression, eye-contact, gestures or body language are now invisable. The communication still possesses some main content happenting in face-to-face conversation but the channels to experess or be impressed are limited. However, more not less of complexity has been generated by the cyberspace communication. Nowadays, in addition to face-to-face, or phone-to-phone communication, we have screen-to-screen communication, and communication models constructed with a mixture of all mentioned above.

There are different theoretical explanations for persona, one important entry is from Carl Jung. Persona is one element of a person's psyche. As discussed by Jung, persona is what we presented to the outside world. Actually, it is not really ourselves. It is a mask, a mask showing different aspect of our social identity.

Wallace, P. (1999). By explaining real life cases, Wallace interpreted the features of human communication. She applied cool and worm to explain how we feel in face-to-face communication. Similar to Goffman, she observed many non-verbal features people always use in face-to-face communication. By presenting two case study, Wallace discussed the difference of emotional intelligence presence in real life and onlinie space, where it is less acute. Wallace also observed that along with people's familiarity with online communication, as they use it more frequently, social emotional mileage goes futher and people have been developing different ways of expressions, such as online lexicon, and graphic accents, etc. This observation can be connected to last week reading of readership in cyberspace. With all these, online interaction is warmer and more socioemotional acceptable. Then Wallace began to discuss gender and age as two fundamental identity features which are specifically important in initial impression on online communication. In the social cognition and categories, Wallace took a similar way as Suler, explaining social reasons why individuals get together in the same online community. For the rest part of the article, Wallace discussed the phenomena of chat room, home page and email, where she focused on how these works and what kinds of activities are happening there. However, this part focused more on phenomena with less solid psychology discussion directed by developed theories.

Suler, J. (2000). Suler took a breath in interpreting identity issues occurs in online/cyberspace activity. The author applied a psychoanalytical in some part of the article. Instead of presenting multiple examples in cyberspace community, Suler proposed five factors to help readers understand identity in cyberspace. The first is the balance of dissociation and integration. The cyberspace actually provides us a flexible environment where we can personalize the packets of our own characteristics that we are comfortable to present to the external social interactions. Of course, in cyberspace, we all are conscious and unconscious in every moment we are awake. The fact is that we do not know who we are as a complex creature. Cyberspace provides the opportunity to develop certain aspect of who we are and some aspects of our identity that are not identified or noticed in face-to-face activities. To this extent, cyberspace is a land where we discover ourselves while we discover "others". However, for the mental health sake, it is significant to maintain integration of the selfhood. Here Suler introduced his explanation for "Integration Principles".
Suler pointed out that the self as a whole is greater than the mechanical sum of all the parts. As it might be accepted by people that all our activities on cyberspace are overlapped and connected, cyberspace does help to realize that an individual can present different identifications seperatly or even exclusively. In this process, cyberspace has its advantages. For example, individual can enjoy the relaxation without stresses happens in face-to-face settings; and the support offered and received by community on cyberspace may be welcomed and not available in exactly the same way in place other than cyberspace. But again, Suler emphasized the importance of integration. He focused on the connection of online and off-line living, which I think is a way touch the root of the issue of selfhood in cyberspace and physical-social space, the integration of the individual. He provided six suggestions for practice of achieving integraion:1. Telling online companions about one's offline life; 2. Telling offline companions about one's online life; 3. Meeting online companions in-person; 4. Meeting offline companions online; 5. Bringing online behavior offline; 6. Bringing offline behavior online. As we can see, different people have been practicing different suggestions on this list. But not all of them.
Connecting with the first factor, Suler move to the discussion of positive and negative charged psychological energy. The author showed positive attitude towards cyberspace because it can benefit individuals to discharge their negative energy. In the third factor, the issue of identity is raised by means of level of fantasy or reality. Online, individuals have different opportunities to present the real self or just an imaginary persona. This factor is tricky to get through. In the fourth factor, Suler brought up discussion of consciousness and control, which is more depth psychological oriented. The last factor is very constructive by analyziing different media of online life with their corresponding reasons why different people select different media.

Focus Question
Do you see any of the ideas of the readings resonating with your “construction” of your 2nd life identity?

I think people in different stages of this action of construction may resonate differently. But there should be something in common. Goffman's framework of human communication resonate to my case in face-to-face communcation. When I reflect my self on second life, I find his observation is very useful for me to interpret the difference I find between face-to-face communication and that of online. Also, I find Suler's discussion on chosen media happens to me contextually. Wallace's observation on usage of graphic accents and online lexicon vocabulary is very familar in my online activity, also her discussion on gender resonated in my conscious communication with the strangers in second life world.

Questions for Discussion in class

1. Does the action of integration proposed by Suler change the feature of cyberspace behavior? To what extent people are really, consciously and unconsciously, concern about the mental health in the cyberspace age?
2. More cognitive energy may be applied for online communication because of the specific interaction interface, or the media. Does this cognitive process help us understand and discover more of the selfhood compared with face-to-face interaction? If that is a possibility, why it is that? Is it because this cognitive process provides us opportunity to be consciously asare of some part of our behavior and persona that we ignore in face-to-face communication?
3. Cyberspace communication generated different cognitive process than face-to-face settings. But when we talk about this, even in our readings, we have the assumption that the online communication is non-visual and a lot of times non-audio, such as second life. With the presence of visual and audio media, then will the psychological or cognitive difference between online and face-to-face communication change? If yes, why? If not, why?
4. While we understand that there are some common psychological and behavioral characteristics shared by people with different ages or genders, there always are differences as a result of experience, culture, occupation, education, etc. Is there any study shows impact of occupation and employment position on people's hanging out on cyberspace? What are the most popular activities adults do online?
5. Persona, the maske of the ego, which is the center of human consciousness, is on the focal point of this week's reading. With the enhancement of cyberspace readership, in what ways online experiences may help or contribute to people's discovering themselves and transformation.
   
   
   
   
   

Reflection for the 7th week.

Articles Read:
Casti, J. L. (1997). Would-be worlds: How simulation is changing the frontiers of science (pp. 1-36). John Wiley & Sons: New York.
Starr, P. (1994). Seductions of Sim Policy as a Simulation Game. American Prospect, 5(17), Available online: http://www.prospect.org/print/V5/17/starr-p.html
Turkle, S. (1997). Seeing through computers education in a culture of simulation. The American Prospect Online, 8(31), Available at http://www.prospect.org/print/V8/31/turkle-s.html

Summaries:
Even thought these three articles were published a decade ago, they form a trinity and provide some good vision on understanding the issues of simulation.

Casti, J. L. (1997). Casti's article is part of a book which focused on simulation. The section we have is the first chapter, consequently, it forms the introduction of the book. It started with some popular scene in sports which is attractive to readers to attach on the content. With the two well-known cases of World Cup of football and Super Bowl games, Casti provided a structure of questions that is very concrete in understanding simulations. After a good illustration of two cases, FBPRO95 and an electronic version of planetary objects, Casti provided an initiative discussion of "model" which it not related to mathematical symbols or lines of computer codes: experimental, logical, mathematical/computational, and theoretical. Furthermore, Casti constructed predictive, explanatory, and Prescriptive models to explain more real cases happening in our daily life which is other than computer-based simulation. But all these discussion was centered by the author's focus on electronic world, the simulation has computer or cyberspace origin. This is an informative article that proposed a rich theoretical perspective in explaining they mechanism of simulation, how actually some of the simulation was and has been designed. From the lines, Casti implicitly express the feeling of excitement of the coming era of electronic world.

Starr, P. (1994). Starr applied a very skillful layout connecting the simulation product, the Sim- serial games, and the simulation practiced by the real world government department, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). He also mentioned the fact that showed the necessity of understanding the phenomena of simulation games: "Now the workers were asked to make decisions based on information flashing on a computer screen. this shift deemphasized sensory knowledge and put a premium on more abstract, 'intellective' capacities".

Starr classified the simulations by the activities involved: role-play and projection of behavior of a complex system. By providing the fact that SimCity has "probably introduced more people to urban planning than any book ever has", Starr brought the discussion to the factors that made Sim- games popular: more accessible, absorbing, and playable. With the comparison of the practice of CBO, Starr discussed transparency vs. black-box situation on models for both simulation games and real world simulation practice. Starr pointed out that compare with simulation games, the "real world" policy simulation has the models that are "subject to criticism and debate". Starr acknowledged the power that simulation games holding, either entertainment-only or teaching-tool-only attitude is underestimate the significance of simulation games. We have to see this phenomena and simulation in a larger and widely-connected picture.

Turkle, S. (1997). This article is in good fit after I finished reading the first two. The major contributions of this article are proposing the ideas of culture of simulation and habits of readership appropreated to this culture. The article started with questioning on the observation that the goals of teaching students computers have been changing from "how computers worked and how to write programs" to "how to use computer applications". The following discussion follow along with this changing process. Turkle discussed "how computers worked" in the sections of algorithm and "Walking-Through Computer" exhibit. Then he developed the argument into "how to use computer applications" with observation on software fluency. In discussion of the bad and good for simulations, besides the two basic attitudes towards seduction of simulation: accept, reject, Turkle proposed the third position that interpret the simulation popularization phenomenon as a "challenge to develop a new social criticism". In the end Turkle proposed his version of one of the goals of computer education, which is to interrogate simulations with similar thoughts when we developing our centuries-long habits of readership. This article ended with the awareness to the quote "There was a child went forth every day. And the first object he look'd upon, that object he became". Human-Simulation interaction is a double helix that never ends. So we need to understand simulation, the relationship, and be aware of this bond all the time.

Focus question:
Name an experience or activity that you think is ideally suited to be simulated (and why).

With all different kinds of practices that can be classified as simulations, there are simulations of social and economic construction or interaction (more like sim- games), physical experiences (like flight simulators), psychological experiences (like role play in a game acting other social roles, such as father/mother of a child/baby, or boy/girl friend, or a soldier/hero/heroine/knight, etc.). The example I can offer can be one of the physical experience simulation that is more like, I think, flight simulator. It was one of the venture game in Universal, Orlando, Back to the Future the Ride. As described on the website, this is a trip "You'll fly from 2015 Hill Valley through an Ice Age avalanche and into the clutches of a dinosaur and back to the future - all to stop Biff from altering the future." While I took the trip, with the combination of inputs on senses of sight, sound, and touch, and the feeling of weightlessness, I felt "real". It was just like you were flying with the spaceship.

Questions for discussion:
1. What do you think about your attitude to simulation in education, and its function in our real life? In education related issues, I take the position that simulation is not a substitution for what we have for the traditional way of teaching, but more a complementation for a more effective learning process and a powerful tool for high-efficiency experience of skill and information acquisition, and even on transfer.

2. Interestingly, the publisher of Sim- games pointed out that the purpose of SimCity is not accuracy or prediction but communication. What does the communication mean in this case? Does this purpose also agreed or experienced by gamers?

Reality

When we talk about the reality (not a philosophy concern), the qualities of reality is more personal constructed. If that can be the starting point, the qualities could be including: channels of senses involved, psychological reaction. What else?

Why people try hard to replicate? Benefit driven, skill development, curiosity and/or love for challenge. What else?

Reflection for the 6th week.

Articles read:
Main Course
Eco, U. (1983). Travels in hyperreality. In U. Eco. Collection of essays: Travels in hyperreality (pp. 3-58.). Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich.
Stone, S. (1995). Split subjects, not atoms. Or how I fell in love with my prosthesis. In C. G. Gray (Ed.), The cyborg handbook (pp. 393-406). New York: Routledge.
Sanes, K. (2002). Virtual realities: Then & Now. Available online at http://www.transparencynow.com/lascaux.htm
Side order
Sanes, K. (2002). Traveling Through Hyperreality With Umberto Eco. Available online athttp://www.transparencynow.com/eco.htm
Bradbury, R. (19xx). The Veldt. Available online at http://www.veddma.com/veddma/Veldt.htm

Summaries:
Eco, U. (1983). Eco applied a critical lens reflecting the phenomena of hyperreality happening in American's culture. The article started with the presentation of holography, one of the example of fake reality. Eco used a very skillful way to vividly describe the reproduced reality, some cases of which are more attractive than the real reality. Starting from the holography, Eco connected the Fortress of Sloitude, museum, wax museum, replication of arts, trip of paddle-steamer on Mississippi, the city of Las Vegas, Disneyland, Fantasyland, zoo in San Diego, etc. Across the great variety, Eco is making the point that the situation of hyperreality is driven by profit, by the desire of consumers. With this driving force, the hyperreality presentation generate the effect that "the Past is not distinguished from the Present" (pp.23), and the philosophy of "We are giving you the reproduction so you will no longer feel any need for the original" (pp.19) is widely practiced. All these make the Absolute Fake or the authentic fake take the unconsciousness form and permeate in people's daily life. Actually, Eco's article opens a door of understanding the reality related issue in a much wider picture, which is different from computer-based virtual world. Based on Eco's discussion, there are desire, curiosity, market-profit, ideology, and philosophy all involved.

What is Virtual Reality?
Before further my summaries for this week's reading, I need to understand the basic concept of Virtual Reality first. After browsing http://www.dictionary.com/, eight results show with very similar explanations. Example entry: The American Heritage Science Dictionary -- A computer simulation of a real or imaginary world or scenario, in which a user may interact with simulated objects or living things in real time. More sophisticated virtual reality systems place sensors on the user's body to sense movements that are then interpreted by the system as movements in the simulated world; binocular goggles are sometimes used to simulate the appearance of objects in three dimensions.

Similarly, on http://www.m-w.com/, the result shows:
Function: noun
Date: 1987
An artificial environment which is experienced through sensory stimuli (as sights and sounds) provided by a computer and in which one's actions partially determine what happens in the environment; also: the technology used to create or access a virtual reality.

Obviously, virtual reality by definition is computer origin. Our readings cover a wider picture of the issue. Here I need to clarify the Hyperreality from the dictionary version of virtual reality.

Hyperreality:
Umberto Eco is know as a philosopher. He defines Hyperreality as "The authentic fake". Besides him, Jean Baudrillard is another theorist who influences a lot for the development of hyperreality perspective. He defines Hyperreality as "The simulation of something which never really existed."

The following is some information helps me to understand Hyperreality (emphasis added). This information also helps me to recognize the different existence forms of virtual world in physical space and virtual world in cyberspace.

This article is about the concept of hyperreality as it applies to contemporary continental philosophy. For hyperreality in art, see Hyperrealism (painting).In semiotics and postmodern philosophy, hyperrealism (not to be confused with surrealism) is a symptom of an evolved, postmodern culture. Hyperreality is a way of characterising the way the consciousness interacts with "reality". Specifically, when a consciousness loses its ability to distinguish reality from fantasy, and begins to engage with the latter without understanding what it is doing, it has shifted into the world of the hyperreal. The nature of the hyperreal world is characterised by "enhancement" of reality. Some famous theorists of hyperreality include Jean Baudrillard, Albert Borgmann, Daniel Boorstin, and Umberto Eco.

Most aspects of hyperreality can be thought of as "reality by proxy." For example, a viewer watching pornography begins to live in the non-existent world of the pornography, and even though the pornography is not an accurate depiction of sex, for the viewer, the reality of "sex" becomes something non-existent. Some examples are simpler: the McDonald's "M" arches create a world with the promise of endless amounts of identical food, when in "reality" the "M" represents nothing, and the food produced is neither identical nor infinite.

Hyperreality is significant as a paradigm to explain the American cultural condition. Consumerism, because of its reliance on sign exchange value (e.g. brand X shows that one is fashionable, car Y indicates one's wealth), could be seen as a contributing factor in the creation of hyperreality or the hyperreal condition. Hyperreality tricks the consciousness into detaching from any real emotional engagement, instead opting for artificial simulation, and endless reproductions of fundamentally empty appearance. Essentially, (although Baudrillard himself would perhaps balk at the usage of this word) fulfillment or happiness is found through simulation and imitation of a transient simulacrum of reality, rather than any interaction with any "real" reality.

Interacting in a hyperreal place like a casino gives the subject the impression that one is walking through a fantasy world where everyone is playing along. The decor isn't authentic, everything is a copy, and the whole thing feels like a dream. What isn't a dream, of course, is that the casino takes your money, which you are more apt to give them when your consciousness doesn't really understand what's going on. In other words, although you may intellectually understand what happens at a casino, your consciousness thinks that gambling money in the casino is part of the "not real" world. It is in the interest of the decorators to emphasise that everything is fake, to make the entire experience seem fake. The casino succeeds in turning money itself to an object with no inherent value or inherent reality.

For further information on this topic please visit: http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Hyperreality

This brief discussion cited above is in favor of Jean Baudrillard' definition, which is different from Umberto Eco's definition of Authentic Fake. For Eco, the hyperreality is created by professionals in arts, or technicians and craftsmen via reproducing historical scene, social creatures, or through presence of real physical and psychological experience of specific surroundings that individual can hardly experience otherwise.

After the Eco's article, Stone presented her discussion focusing more on computer based virtual reality.

Stone, S. (1995). Another compelling article. The article is actually discussing the cyberspace, about the computer-based "virtual". But Stone took another route, which is more vivid and deeper in unveiling the relationship of physical and virtual world. The discussion started analyzing the phone sex, by which Stone began her interpretation of mechanism of virtual reality: senses are involved and certain sense is heightened. Then Stone went back to the social change from mechanical age to virtual time. Under this environment, Stone's discussion on virtual reality experience is significant. Continuing the discussion on senses, Stone discussed the dual desire, "hypertactility" (physical) of technological objects and mysterious hidden organs (psychological). The discussion changed to "whereness" on cyberspace. Stone furthered her discussion by arguing that "a socially apprehensible citizen is a collection of physical and discursive elements" (pp.399). Then she developed the argument to virtual systems that "human act at a distance by delegating their agency to someone or something else that has the freedom to travel out of their sight, and if we follow that agency back far enough, eventually we can trace it to the original human's physical presence" (pp.400). At the second part of this article, Stone started on the paradigm of computers, and then focused on cyberspace related issues, such as prosthetic communication, multi-user computer games, and computer-generation. Comparing with people who support that there is nothing new for prosthetic communication and perceive the computer as barely information container, Stone implicitly showed her position in the "everything" camp, in which "computers are arenas for social experimentation and dramatic interaction, a type of medium more like public theater, and their output is used for qualitative interaction, dialogue and conversation. Inside the little box are other people" (pp.402). After that, Stone reminded the readers that the scale of individuals involved in cyberspace had changed dramatically which have been bringing around the importance of understanding the cyberspace, the developers of it and the generations of consumers of it. Finally, she alerted that virtual system might be dangerous because "the agent/body coupling so diligently fostered by every facet of our society is in danger of becoming irrelevant" (pp.404). To sum up, instead of a brief wrap-up, Stone tried to initiate more argument for the "good" of the cyberspace, "the troubling and productive space of desire, of play, and most of all, of possibility" (pp.405). This article is very enlightening to me to outline the multi-aspects involved in the computer based media research (which, in my understanding, is the main focus of the media research in education).

Sanes, K. (2002). It is interesting that Sanes used virtual realities as the title of this article. Basically he did not mention anything based on computer technology. He referred virtual realities to those generated by the symbolic codes, such as painting and words, etc. He interpreted the imitation realities creation of human beings as a way we bridge the world of nature and the human civilization history. Imitation realities (the realities created by taking the components of the actual world, and reshaped and recombined them, in conformity with its own fantasies and imagination.) "allowed audiences to physically and psychologically immerse themselves in the situations and environments that have been portrayed". Further, Sanes provided two reasons or motivations to why people create imitation realities. First, it may because of the inherent impulse of constructing our own versions of reality. Second, it may because of the sense of power we feel that enables us to recreate "a world in our own image". I think that might be the motivation of the popularity of Second Life. At the end, Sanes posted a question which is bigger than any single research: what will become of human nature in a world where we increasingly live inside lifelike fictions?

Bradbury, R. (19xx). This is a short science fiction with a lot of information. The story is about a family of four, father, mother, son (10 years old), and daughter, and their house, or to be specific the nursery room. The whole house is artificial intelligence enabled. The nursery room is equipped with high-tech simulation system which can be programmed easily and have the function of adaptation. The children have been living in the nursery room for a while, where they have been immersed in an "authentic fake" world. The spouse were scared by the Veldt environment in their children's nursery room. This event worked as a fuse for a series of critical reflection of the spouse, specifically the husband, to the whole issue of the new house and the way the spouse treating their children in this house. The ending is a typical revenge form spoiled and misled children. What an individual can reflect from this article linking his or her personal experience really depends. But some main ideas can be shared among readers. There are issues of simulation effectiveness, similarity of psychological reaction of hyperreality and real world experience, and children education, etc.

Sanes, K. (2002). This article is a follow-up of Eco's article in 1975. Sanes commented that what Eco observed and argued two decades ago is confirmed and even surpassed in some occasions nowadays. Sanes agreed that after observing the phenomena, one may be surer about the "characterization of the age, which is forever offering us something that seems better than real in order to sell us something" -- "the cultural shortcomings of America". Sanes re-summed the major points of Eco's narration on the " fake history, fake art, fake nature and fake cities". Sanes also pointed out the key feature of the re-created hyperreality by quote Eco that "Disneyland tells us that technology can give us more reality than nature can". So the question is if or not the consumers going to pay for those experience, for how long? Will there be one day that the consumers will pay to buy the real reality away from their life in hyperreality, just like what happened in the story of Veldt?

Focus question:
What is the difference between a "real" and a "virtual" experience?

After all the discussion above, the answer to this question could vary depending on the definition of virtual experience. However, there are some common features that could be shared by any experience caused by different reality, virtual or physical.

1. Real experience vs. hyperreal experience. The virtual experiences caused by hyperreality involve many senses of the human body. There is hardly any difference of psychological reflection/reaction. A lot of times, it is really hard for individual to tell the differences between hyperreality and real reality.
2. Real experience vs. virtual (computer-based) experience. In this case, I think the difference between a "real" and a "virtual" experience is mainly from physical experience than psychological experience. As I discussed, virtual experience, or to be specific cyberspace experience, is different from simulation experience in which all the senses could be activated, such as senses of touch and smell, or feeling of weightlessness, etc. In virtual experience, only sense(s) of sight and/or hearing are/is stimulated. In addition, the virtual reality can also provide different cognitive experiences. In this sense, there is potential strength that virtual experience can enable individuals to enhance their learning experiences for certain subject-matter, skills, and practice in a fairly short period of time. On the other hand, cyberspace based experience also provides possibilities for an individual to experience what he/she might never experience otherwise.
3. Psychologically, an individual may not be able to feel the difference between real and virtual experiences, or even physically. For most of the time, I think we are talking about the real time reflection of the experience. However, after certain time (could be short or long), maybe with more education (formal and informal, academic and social), one may be able to tell which is real and which is virtual. This thought makes me recall a line repeatedly showing in drama or film: Do not trust what you see! So critical reflection may not be a direction difference, but it definitely can help to tell the real and virtual.
4. The subjective vs objective angle can really change the answer to this question. If people take the constructivism perspective to interprete this question, there can be no difference at all. However, if we apply the external reality independent from our existing and use the objective lens, there is always difference in the reality of real and virtual experience.

Questions for discussion:

1. There should be two different types of real reality, physical world of the Big Nature, and that of social existence of human being and all the civilization results/facts. Do you agree with this statement?
2. If we combine the two types of realities, or only focus on social construct, will the hyperreality real reality in form of authentic fake, or product made based on real reality?
3. There are different virtual realities as I discussed depends on different definition? If you do not agree with this, what is your position? Why?
4. Linking back to our course theme of research on media application in education, will focus on hyperreality or cyberspace/virtual reality generate different research emphasis? What exactly are we, as researchers, concerning, considering, or caring about, the hyperreality, computer-based virtual reality, or both? I am asking because for most of the case I know of in the research in education relating with technology are actually computer-based environment instead of hyperreality.
5. People use computers for different things: calculating -- students and professionals such as mathematicians, data analysts; substituting face to face communication -- MSN, Skype, email; Obtaining/exchanging information -- forum, online shopping, online surfing on google, or yahoo for news and information; gaming -- second life, other online or multi-user games or programs with gaming features. However, only the last category fits better for the virtual reality we are discussing. Do you think this brief category works to cover all the roles of computers? Do you agree with the comment? why?

A couple of notes.

• For pro or con for existence of external reality (physically?), do we have we to prove it? Or actually find evidence to find out the disagreement for one's position.
• Taking a stand in either of the postion for a research is impacting the research the researcher does.

Reflection for the 5th week.

Readings:
Searle, J. R. (1998). Mind, language and society: Philosophy in a new key. Chapter 1: Basic Metaphysics: Reality and truth (pp. 1 - 37). New York: Basic Books.
Prisig, R. M. (1974). Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance: An inquiry into values (pp. 29 - 36). New York: Corgi Books.
Bruner, J. (1986). Actual minds, possible worlds. Chapter 7: Nelson Goodman's Worlds. (pp. 93 - 105). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
von Glasersfeld, E. (1992). Aspects of radical constructivism and its educational recommendations.

The authors of the readings all took their own epistemological position in understanding the world around them and at the same time trying to convince their readers to believe their narration of discussion is reliable and real.

The discussion, or even debate, focused on the epistemological issues are much more complicated and has a much longer history than research on media and education. To some extent, the position one takes in this debate could work as a premise of how they perceive the work in media and education. That is because philosophical stand is the fundamental methodology of how people think.

Summaries:

Searle, J. R. (1998). Searle took a different approach in his introductory writing for philosophy. For this point I would say the targeted readers have to have some former knowledge on the philosophical perspectives to digest his introduction well without easily convinced by the discussion. He adopted a format of debate by which he addressed two popular camps that do not agree the perspective of "external reality": antirealism and skeptivism. The author started his argument by listing several default position of philosophical issues in his mind: independtly existence of a real world, direct perceptual access to the world through senses, clear meanings possessed by words in our language, true or false call on our statements based on the facts in the world, causation as a real relation among objects and events in the world. Then he began his real focus on reality, the real world. The major camps he is arguing against is the group of various kinds of antirealists, such as social constructionism, pragmatism, deconstructionism, relativism, postmodernism, etc. and those of skepticism. Along with his discussion, he provided his viewpoint that "External realism is not a claim about the existence of this or that object, but rather a presupposition of the way we understand such claims". Befor he began his final session of discussion on Atheism, he re-emphasized his position of the motivation for anti-realism: a will to power, a desire for control, and a deep and abiding resentment. In the last part of this article, Searle reinformce his argument of existing external independent real world by providing various examples showing the significance of evidence in the case of Atheism. It is quite challenging to have in depth discussion on some key issues of basic philosophy theories in such a limited space.

Bruner, J. (1986). After read the article by Searle, it is easier to follow the main idea of Goodman presented by Bruner. Obviously, Goodman took the postion of constructivism, or a form of antirealism. In Goodman's system, he discussed distinction of versions and worlds. A "world is not the version itself; the version may have features -- such as being in English or consisting of words -- that its world does not" (pp.99). And he also argued that "we make versions, and right versions make worlds. And however distinct worlds may be from right versions, making right versions is making worlds" (pp.99). Then Bruner led his discussion to Goodman's theory of symbol. As proposed by Goodman, each constructed the world differently, the disctinction at issue is the use of "symbol system". The central notion of Goodman's symbol theory is "reference", a "primitive term covering all sorts of symbolization, all cases of standing for" (pp.101). Bruner discussed later then that a contribution of Goodman's perspective is providing a clearer a concept of mind 'as an instrument for producing worlds" (pp.104). But in the end, Bruner's argument went back to a general understanding of Goodman's approach that the discipline of his theoretical framework changed radically when he adoped a stipulation in a symbol system to interpret "the world" than accepting the idea of the existence of "the world".

Prisig, R. M. (1974). This is a great fit for the current discussion that we have for this weeks. Basically, this is a narrative in which some big ideas of philosophy exists. The father who are confident in making decisions were doing them by his impulse and senses. The main scene of discussion of the existence of ghost and the argument of Indian and European difference in belief. The father, as a symbolic creature representing a lot of common people that have their own believes, talked about the science and the changes it has brought around to people's mind, to the way people see things, and to the way people perceive the surroundings, not in a serious academic way, but in a vivid, home-style way. As the main scene of the story, the talk around ghost is also a lead for the main character to show the root of his current ideas: the ideas of Phaedrus. I cannot help to make some reflection at the moment connect this story with other articles for this week. Basically, there are two linking points. First, the story telling and conversation is the main source and form of development of knowledge starting from ancient time. This form ignites questions on big problems, and development of imagination. Like books of Confucius, like Bible, like books of Greek philosophers, the story telling is the main form adopted by the authors of those books to show big ideas, in depth theories. They are more successful in communicating and spreading knowledge and ideas than some serious academic argument of philosophy at present. Second, the development of science, the revolutionary improvement of understanding the brain, the root of thoughts/mind/consciousness, and prograss in cognition recognition, all make the interpretation of the world differently than before. I'd like throw a dialectic idea. The scientific approach is really a key player in the construction of philosophy system. But should there be a balance between evidence and imagination? We can narrow down this thought back to education, such as the debate we have in education the Qualitative study vs the Quantitative study in "scientific research"?

von Glasersfeld, E. (1992). In this short article, the author focused on a specific theory, radical constructivism (RC). As clearly said, the RC is "an attempt to develop a theory of knowing" (pp.1). Obviously, RC is rooted in constructivism, we can see this from the argument that RC "assumes that the cognizing activity is instrumental and neither does nor can concern anything but the experiental world of the knower" (pp.1). Other than just a brief introduction of the basic ideas of RC, the author further developed his argument into a critic of other aspects in order to clarify the stand of RC thoroughly. The author clarified that the RC does not ignore the role of social interaction in the oconstruction of knowledge. Furthermore, the author argue that RC belives that "no matter how viable and satisfactory the solution to a problem might seem, it can never be regarded as teh only possible solution" (pp.2). This statement leaves me a flavor of skeptivism. In the discussion connecting the stand of RC with the practice or interpretation of education, the author focused on the math education and the manipulation of symbols. As he quoted from Hersh that "Sympols are used as aids to thinking just as musical scores are used as adis to music" (pp.3). At the end of this short article, the discussion raised an important problem: for the fact that may be considered certain, it is because "we come to construct units in a particular way and have agreed on how they are to be counted". Typical constructivism statement, but also practical for our behavior of social communication and so-called common sense. But one important thing is missing here: depends on what we construct those units? Scientific evidence or personal experience construction of someone? That could make huge difference of the root of philosophical stand.

Focus questions:

Do you think there is an objective reality? Why or why not?

I have been taking the stand that there is an objective reality or "external reality" existing independent from our existing. It is not just because I have been continuously reminded the existence of the Big Nature by infomoration from the physical world we have been living in: global warming, harricane, penguins, fossiles, energy crisis, war, rockets and spaceshipa launched into the sky, etc. or the life encountering such as 20 hours flight back to China, conversation with people from different countries with unique experiences, watching live games or games on TV, fixing problems of cars, furnitures, computers, and other hardwares, etc. It is also because what I know from my education and experience. I think I am among the people we trust what they found out from present "evidence".

I belive in the theory that human beings are the result of nature selection and evolution. Human beings are not from nowhere. Although we are different from other animals because of the social nature, we have our natrue shared by primates. The problem of the existence of objective reality is one of the fundamental question of philosophy. And the root of it, which is the shared by other philosophical questions, is curiosity of knowing where did we come from, who are we, and where are we going. At this point, I have some question on Searle's judge call that the basic reason for anti-realism is the will of power. I kinda not agree with this comment.

Questions:
1. If we relate this week's main theme with the research in media and education, what do you think could make the connnection? Why it is important to be aware of this debate on realism/reality existence?
2. Related to the first question, do you think taking different position of external reality may affect the research in media and education? If yes, in what way? If no, why?
3. As I discussed in the summary of von Glasersfeld, E. (1992): "we come to construct units in a particular way and have agreed on how they are to be counted"is a typical constructivism statement. It is also very practical for our behavior of social communication and so-called common sense. But one important thing is missing here: depends on what we construct those units? Scientific evidence or personal experience construction of someone? That could make huge difference of the root of philosophical stand. I'd like to know our classmates's stand on the "external reality" and debate a little bit on this question based on their own position.